


the shining of you that just breaks me in two

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [22]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Genderqueer Character, Humanstuck, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:24:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You rent an apartment with one of your best friends during college. It's a studio apartment, and the building may be older than Moses, but it's your own space. And that means more than anything in the world after your strictly religious Ghanaian parents disinherit you for loving a woman. You are Porrim Maryam, a nursing major, and are now in control of your own destiny. You and your roommate spend most of your time chain smoking cigarettes and playing video games, at least when you're not in class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. november 2008 - now i sleep free

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so the whole porrim/meenah thing will make a lot more sense after i upload another story in this 'verse that i finished writing a few weeks ago.  
> but yeah, i hope you like it and all that jazz.

You’ve been moved out of your house for a few weeks now. Living over on Chrystie Street with your roommate.

For his part, your roommate sleeps like a rock, breathing through his mouth the way a fish might. It’s all the medication, for epilepsy and schizophrenia, that knocks him out like a light - risperidone, olanzapine, escitalopram, lorazepam, carbamazepine, and those are just the ones you can pronounce.

The pull out couch is the most expensive thing in your studio apartment, so you two sleep next to each other on the resultant twin bed. It’s sticky and awful in the summer, but now in the middle of November, when the heating never works, it’s not bad at all.

He has one arm thrown around your hips, which you gently pull off of you so you can get up and get a glass of water. He awakens slightly, the hair out of his face, eyes half open to regard you curiously.

_“Porrim?”_

“I was just getting a drink.”

“Bring me back a shot.”

You roll your eyes at his hopeful grinning.

“I meant a drink of water,” you reply. “And on your meds, I think not.”


	2. november 2008 - everything and all i need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bigender mituna, yo.

The desktop computer in the corner of the apartment contains a bunch of search terms you never entered, all of them related to gender non-conformity and nonbinary identities. Bigender suits him, you think. He does everything else in twos.

You catch him in the bathroom wearing one of your dresses zipped halfway up. Sequined and all black with gold trim. The garment is loose at the hips, but the zipper won’t clear his waist.

“Why it won’t clothe?"

“I think my waist is a little smaller than yours,” you say.

After you make him suck in his stomach, with more finagling and more wiggling the zipper, you can get the thing to close. It’s still tight, most likely ready to rip at a small amount of provocation.

“I wouldn’t sit in this if I were you,” you tell him, until you notice that he’s neither moved nor bothered to let out his breath. “You can breathe, though.”

He exhales, very slightly. It must be very tight, for the way he continues to breathe so shallowly. He looks at you nervously, beneath the bathroom light.

“You don't mind?”

You give him a reassuring smile. “No, I don’t mind it at all.”

You contemplate the fifty or so dresses in your closet. There must be one out of all of them that would actually fit. Shit, there must be several. You have a gray one a size up that would probably look nice on him. Then, there’s the jade green one, which happens to be your favorite. It's also far too big for you now. You got it early in high school, back when you still had time to eat on a regular basis. That must have been, what, four years ago?

“Maybe I could find you something that fits better?”

He blows the hair out of his eyes so he can assess his reflection better. Then, he shakes his head at you insistently.

“I like  _thith_  one.”

You roll your eyes just a little. Your roommate, when he gets going, refuses to listen to anybody. Even if it weren’t tight on him, it’d be too short. It comes up to mid-thigh on you, and he’s got at least half a foot on you. You can’t think of what could possibly draw him to this garment, until you recall everything else that he wears. The gold. The gold.

You think. With just a little searching, you locate another dress, one that you’ve made, in gold chambray stretch linen. Shortly after finishing the detail on it, you realized it was a little too flashy for your tastes.  _But for him_ …

You pad back into the bathroom, hook an arm around his waist. He flinches, then sees the dress that you hold up to his chest.

“Mituna, what about this?” you ask. “I know you said you liked what you’re wearing, but…”

His eyes go as wide as saucers. His smile comes that much wider, displaying all of his crooked teeth. He nods sharply.

Carefully, you unzip the first dress, which puddles around his feet. Instead of his stupid tetris-patterned boxers, he wears a pair of your black panties, and has clearly worked how to tuck. Again, his nervous stare, darting from either side of you but never settling on your face.

“Step out of the dress. And don’t worry, it’s fine,” you tell him. “With boxers, the dress wouldn’t hang right, now would it?”

He blinks at you.

“Just… step in,” you say, holding the gold dress at the appropriate angle. “And keep those, would you?”

You know before even trying to close it that the gold dress will fit. The zipper goes up in a fluid, simple motion. There’s a sash that ties in the front, one his fingers can’t quite seem to work out the details of.

“Turn.”

You tie it yourself. Suddenly inspired and feeling impulsive, you turn to the bathroom cabinet and open the first drawer, pull out your primer, eyeshadow palette, makeup brushes, liquid liner, and lipstick, along with a tie to keep his hair out of his eyes while you work.

“Do you want me to do your face?”

He nods again. You hand him the tie, which he uses to pull his hair back. Then, you get to work.

Nothing too fancy, nothing that would distract from his clothing. After covering his lids in primer, you dust gold across them. It catches the light and shines.

“Can you stay still enough for me to do the eyeliner?”

You know that the antipsychotic medication makes him twitchy.

“I’ll try?”

That’s probably as good as you’ll get. It’s always more difficult doing this on someone else. To his credit, he keeps his movement to a minimum, enabling you to make two thin, nearly symmetrical lines, with wings. They aren’t perfect, but to a degree where only you can tell. If you tried to straighten them now, you’d probably just make them worse. You coat your tiny lip brush in lipstick.

“Relax your mouth.”

He does, eyes still closed. You gently brush some of the dark color onto his lips.

“You can look at yourself in the mirror now.”

He smirks at his reflection. Something tentative continues to hang around him.

“I look pretty?”

You kiss him on the cheek in response. “Of course you do.”

He twirls in the mirror, making the skirt of the dress flare out.

Later afternoons would see you attempting to teach him how to walk in heels. Your heels. Since he wears a men’s size seven to your women’s size nine, they fit him like a dream, even if they do make him ridiculously tall.

He stumbles more times than you can count on both hands. It’s simultaneously amusing, yet unbearably cute. He'll get the hang of it.


	3. december 2008 - you make me smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> have yourself a merry little christmas

GA: And I have do+ne all the wo+rk o+f buying a tree and am simply asking yo+u to+ help deco+rate  
TA: QH3R 7H3 H3LL D1D Y0U 3E3N F1ND 400M F0R 4 7R33  
GA: wat  
TA: Y0U KN0W WH47 1 M34N7  
GA: Sure.  
GA: I swear to+ go+d yo+u’re o+nly ever co+herent when yo+u’re blasted o+ut o+f yo+ur mind.  
TA: WH1CH 15 WHY 1M 480U7 70 5M0K3 TH15 J.  
TA: W4N7 4NY?  
GA: No+, I’m fine. Yo+u keep that. And do+n’t burn do+wn the apartment while I’m away.  
TA: N0 PR0M1535.  
GA: I’m getting co+ffee. I’ll be back…?  
TA: 0H 5H17 C0FF33 C4N Y0U 8R1NG M3 84CK 50M3  
GA: I do+n’t think yo+u’re suppo+sed to+ have caffeine o+n yo+ur medicatio+n….  
TA: FUCK Y0U 0K4Y  
GA: Because no+w I to+tally want to+ get yo+u co+ffee.  
TA: N0 W417 D1DN7 M34N 7W0 CURS3 Y0U 0U7 PL3334453 8R1NG M3 C0FF33  
GA: I’ll get yo+u decaf, that sho+uld keep yo+u o+ut o+f tro+uble.  
TA: 8U7 1 L1K3 7R0U8L3  
GA: I’ll be back.  
TA: 50UND5 L1KE 4 M07H3RFUCK3N 73RM1N470R WH3N 5H3 54Y5 7H47  
TA: “1LL 83 84CK”  
TA: “45 500N 45 1 D3C1M473 7H4 HUM4N R4C3 7W0 G37 MY C0FF33”  
TA: “4ND 1M N07 8R1NG1NG 8ACK 4NY 4 MY 8357 FR13ND 83CAU53 1 4M 4 FUCK455 1N 3-1NCH H33L5”  
TA: “8R8 D357R0Y1NG 7H4 W0RLD”  
GA: I ho+pe yo+u kno+w tho+se messages actually sent.  
TA: 5H17  
GA: Nevertheless  
GA: I decided to+ be nice to+ yo+u and get yo+ur precio+us caffeine fix.  
TA: I R37R4C7 4LL PR3VI0U5 57473M3N75 480U7 Y0UR 831NG 4 FUCK455.  
GA: Yo+ur gratitude is unnecessary.  
TA: G01NG FULL 73RM1N470R 1 533.


	4. january 2009 - when i smell your skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yeah yeah, m rating, pay attention, this is why there's an M rating on this.

Both you and Mituna have sex drives that can be best summed up by the word "insatiable".

It was only a matter of time before something happened.

The first time ze kisses you, you can’t quite believe it. Not that ze’s kissed you, but that you, still getting over your shock, decide to kiss back. You think of pinning hir to the couch, pushing one of the cushions aside, letting your hair fall into hir face to form a small curtain. But you're still standing at the door, pulling hir toward you so that you are flush against each other.

Ze makes the softest sounds at the back of hir throat, and places hir hands on your shoulders. Sometimes you click teeth, sometimes ze has no idea what ze’s doing with hir tongue. Frequently, in fact.

You laugh into hir mouth at how awkward this encounter is. Ze laughs right back at you. The two of you stand, still kissing, making your way to the door.

Ze wafts up the usual Mituna smell of stale cigarettes and coffee beans, and you’re kind of thankful that your thing with Meenah is more open than a revolving door because this would definitely fall under the realm of “cheating” in any other relationship.

If Meenah undresses you slowly, then Mituna gets your clothes off the way ze does everything else in life, fast and with no care whatsoever. Ze gets utterly confused trying to unclasp your bra and finally yanks it over your head. To be fair, ze does the same thing with hir own.

Hir fists ball up in your skirt, searching for something tangible to hold on to. You turn, spin fluidly so ze’s the one with hir back against the door, never breaking the kiss, with hir lower lip in between your teeth.

Not quite hard enough to draw blood, but only just.

Sometimes ze’s jittery manic energy, other times he’s pure depressive "fuck this" lassitude, but rarely, rarely is ze ever the area in the middle, precariously perched upon baseline like a person on the edge of a cliff. Having hir like this feels a little like the empty space between two points, like the breath you never knew you were holding before speaking, nameless yet essential.

Ze doesn’t particularly care for your introspective pauses. All hir body language screams  _put your hands on me now._

_“Hey, Pornthtar.”_

God, the grin on hir face whenever ze uses that nickname is so wide and stupid.

Your foul mouthed roommate, somehow more than the sum of hir parts. Ze writhes as if ze doesn’t enjoy being trapped between your body and the door, and you ask hir if you want to slow down, earning a resounding "hell no" in response. Hir fingers fumble with the few buttons on your skirt -  _one and two, three and four_  - and then it’s been undone to pool at your feet.

You dig protection, one of those crappy little NYC condoms, out of your purse. Ze slides it on without a word.

Ze somehow manages to make it worth your while, figuring out how you like to be touched based solely on the volume of your moaning. And ze apparently wants to be the one on the bottom for once, enjoys being directed and told what to do.

While being dominant comes to you naturally.


	5. june 2009 - the whispers you sing me

Porrim and Mituna primp and pose in front of the cracked bathroom mirror, getting ready to go to Cronus’s end of the semester party. Mituna switches pronouns whenever, and ze’s getting properly accustomed to this set, a set ze thinks ze might like.

Porrim’s wearing a black sequined skin-tight little dress that Kankri is going to have ten heart attacks when he sees. Mituna, of course, went for a similar dress in a dark shade of yellow. Carefully, ze puts on hir stockings and the gold bracelet Meenah gave hir.

Hands steady now from practice, ze manages to do hir eyeliner without any major fuckups, or having to ask assistance from Porrim. This is the first time ze will present as anything other than “that asshole in skinny jeans and pacman t-shirts” to all their friends. 

Latula knows, of course. She got Mituna this bra. Meenah knows, and gave hir a bunch of bling upon this revelation.

 _"Us gills gotta look fine, you feel me?"_ she’d said, removing a few of her rings and tossing them hir way.  

Still, Mituna is nervous.

"If anyone says anything wrong to you, I’ll fucking cut them," Porrim says.

Mituna has visions of the tall young woman removing one of her pumps and using it to beat someone down. Ze’s got hir money on Cronus, though Kankri is not out of the running.


	6. january 2010 - you're my lifeline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for attempted suicide.  
> i'm serious.

You’re a student nurse at NYU-Bellevue, two years into your program, padding around the psychiatric floor in green scrubs, a black long-sleeved shirt, and sneakers. As always, given your concentration, you’re on the pediatric/adolescent side. It’s both more and less challenging than adult psych.

The latest triage from the ER, sent from triage twenty minutes ago, is barely young enough to warrant a bed on this side at sixteen years of age. God, that makes them the same age as your sister.

Patient, who has a history of bipolar disorder with comorbid panic disorder, downed a bottle of ativan the day they filled their prescription with half a fifth (a tenth?) of rum in a suicide attempt.

They’re also suffering from bradycardia, heart rate in the low 40s and O2 sats in the mid-90s. Date of birth: 06/09/1993.

That sounds vaguely familiar, although you can’t pinpoint why at the moment. Later, you understand.

You always look over the name last, because many times, having a name to put to the face can keep you from doing your job. You feel too bad for them, start writing their life story in your head instead of taking a proper patient history. A name adds a degree of verisimilitude that you don’t need until it’s absolutely necessary.

This poor kid, alone in CPEP. Well, they’re not alone, as the other beds are full. Two more depressives and a girl who lapsed into psychosis behind robotripping. The suicidal kid’s parents, both first generation immigrants, decided to stay in the waiting room according to triage. The mother transported him here, rather than call an ambulance.

That’s dedication, either that or stupidity.

So now, unable to put it off any longer, you read the kid’s name, last, and then first. The surname earns an eyebrow raise from you, the first an open-mouthed expression of silent shock.

You should address him properly as Mr. (last name).

But the second that you walk into that room, you address him with familiarity, as if you know him, because you  _do_  know him. You nearly drop your clipboard.

Although you’re forbidden from touching patients except for medically necessary procedures, you wish you weren’t. Oh, how you wish you weren’t. You want to give him a hug and tell him that he’ll be okay, even if that fact angers him for what he tried to do.

“Oh my  _god_.”

Hooked up to monitors and swimming in a twilight state of consciousness from his overdose, he raises his head weakly, propping himself up with his right arm.

“Porrim?” he asks.

Now, you remember the cool, clinical demeanor that you’d forgotten outside.

“Porrim Maryam, nursing student. I’ll be your nurse for the evening.”

Your mouth feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton.

And, eyes fluttering, Sollux manages a nod. Skinny like his older sibling, he’s nearly drowning in the hospital gown. He looks so young.

On the sheet of paper in your clipboard, you fill in the parts of his history that you can remember without asking him. You could write down his address with your eyes closed, from all the afternoons you spent at Mituna’s old place in Brooklyn playing video games.

You glance at one of Sollux’s monitors.  _HR: 41, SpO2: 94_. You write it down. Then, you go through the rest of the patient survey with him, dragging a chair up to his bedside so you can catch his whispered responses.  At the end, you ask him a question of your own.

“Why?”

He inhales slowly.

“I couldn’t do it anymore,” he says, more to himself than to you. “I’m tho, tho thorry.”

You nod, ask him if he wants anything, and bring him the glass of water he’s requested. You watch him drink it, just in case he’s so out of it that he drops the cup.

Half delirious, he murmurs things in Cantonese.

Stabilized, he rolls over, turning away from the door until you come back into his room. Then, he has a final request.

“Will you tell MT to come visit?”

You try to smile at him. “Of course, Sollux.”

“Do you think they’ll keep me?”

“You can stay here, in CPEP, for up to seventy-two hours,” you explain. “Then, yes. I think they’ll have no choice but to admit you.”

“Okay.”

You clock out and walk home to Chinatown, still wearing your scrubs and trying not to cry. Sitting on the front steps outside of your building, you light a cigarette. You text Mituna to come downstairs, and of course ze’s awake and ze does.

You’re too tired to sugarcoat things at the moment.

“Your brother’s in the hospital,” you tell hir.

After Mituna gets over hir shock, ze lights up a cigarette of hir own.

“Weren’t you working psych, tonight?” ze asks you.

You nod.

Mituna exhales a curlicue of smoke into the air. “Tho he’th in psych.”

Another nod.

“He tried to kill himself, Tuna. And he told me to ask you to visit.”

“Doethn’t have to athk. It goeth without thaying.”

These two siblings, who usually hate each other, this is what they are in the end. Mituna rests hir head on your shoulder, staring out at nothing.

“Thank you,” ze finally says. “For watching him.”

You put out your cigarette.

“No need to thank me. To quote you, it goes without saying.”

That morning, you two huddle together on the haphazardly pulled out bed, trying and failing to sleep. Ze buries hir face in your neck and cries silently into your hair.


	7. june 2011 - i'm on my knees

Anyone who thinks being a nurse is any easier than being a physician needs a good uppercut to the face, at least in your opinion. You are a registered nurse, specializing in pediatrics, and you work twelve hour shifts just like the medical residents do.

You’re halfway through starting an IV drip of vancomycin on child too ill to even flinch as you insert the needle, when you hear the news on the hospital room television.

_“…impending ruling on same-sex marriage in New York state…”_

Shocked, you nearly drop the medication in your hands but quickly recover before you can fuck it all up. Ordinarily, you’d stay with the child and their parents, but this is a special circumstance. You hook the bag to an IV pole and speed-walk back to the nurses’ station to scrutinize the television there.

“I’m on break, okay?” you tell one of your coworkers.

“Understood, Maryam.”

It’s strange that you ever go on break. You’re one of those conscientious RNs who takes their job way too seriously.

Of course, the TV’s turned to a wrestling match on HBO. It takes a good fifteen minutes of bitching before you get the remainder of the clinicians to agree to let you change the channel to a news station.

_“…where the bill has passed with a vote of 33 to 29…”_

Your mouth drops open.

“What bill?” someone behind you asks.

“The gay marriage one, I think,” a med student responds.

You fix the pins that hold up your messy bun, and turn to them. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

At half past two in the morning, you clock out and take the brief walk downtown, back to your apartment, still wearing your jade-green scrubs. Even though you’ve had nearly three years to get accustomed to it, it’s always strange remembering that you live on your own.

Your parents had found out about your sexual orientation and the woman you were dating three weeks into your sophomore year of college. They told you to either leave Meenah or to leave their family.

In the end, it wasn’t a hard choice.

You packed your things and stayed with Kankri, Karkat, and their parents for a few weeks. They gave you permission to stay for as long as you needed, rent-free. However, you found an apartment in October and were out three days later.

Still, they have always welcomed you with open arms into their home for holiday gatherings.

You appreciate it, since you were essentially disinherited by your family. Adwoa was discouraged from contacting you lest she face an identical fate, but she only obeyed them on the surface.

The place you live in now is the same crappy thing you moved into then, on Chrystie and so far downtown that the streets no longer had numbers. Even if it’s on the third and the elevator is usually out, even though the heating is broken in the winter and the air conditioning nonexistent in the summer, you still adore it. After all, this studio shoebox is yours, and you share it with one of your best friends.

The east village has exploded into one gigantic party, like New Year’s Eve, but in the middle of June. No doubt because of the recent piece of legislation.

Your roommate sits on the floor level-grinding at the Playstation 2 when you unlock open the door, greeting you with the usual “hello, nurse!” before returning to hir video game. In the bathroom, you undress and run yourself a bubble bath, which you sink into with a satisfied sigh.

An hour later, you towel yourself off, throw on some clothes, and emerge into the living room. Since it’s roughly ninety degrees in this apartment, you wear nothing but a lace brassiere and pajama shorts. Mituna’s only wearing hir boxers.

By the time you plop down onto the couch, ze’s paused hir video game so ze can talk to hir real brother on the phone, lit cigarette in one hand and phone in the other. You grab an ashtray out of the dish drainer and hand it to hir.

Ze yells in Cantonese, so you haven’t the foggiest idea of what ze’s actually saying, but you can understand the tone at the very least.

“Yeah, tho congratulationth, and fuck you too!” That part comes in English.

You roll your eyes.

“Ah, sibling love.”

“Fuck that bitchathth. He’th lucky I’m even gonna go to hith thupidathth graduation.”

Sollux is valedictorian of his graduating class, and even if Mituna pretends not to give a flying fuck, ze’s extremely proud of hir little brother. Your sister isn’t at the top of her class, and you’re certainly proud of her.

You doze off, curled up and cat-like, while Mituna continues to grind levels and chain smoke. When your cell phone starts ringing beside you on the couch, you snap awake to answer it, not even bothering to check the caller ID.

“Wha..?”

You are not particularly articulate at five in the morning. Ever the eavesdropper, Mituna puts hir game on hold again. You'd shout at hir to go the hell to sleep but you're already on the phone.

“Morning, Akuba,” comes the feminine voice on the other end. That wakes you up, fast.

“Yaaba, is that you?” you ask.

“Tha one and only,” she replies. “Listen, y’all got TV down at Bellevue, right?”

You stretch your arms toward the ceiling, noting how this must be deadly serious if she isn’t making fish puns, and holding the phone between your cheek and your shoulder. “Certainly. In every patient’s room, the waiting room, and the nurses’ stations.”

“So, you’ve seen the news, right?” she asks, and now she sounds a bit nervous.

“I have.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think it’s a wonderful thing that they’ve finally passed the bill.”

Silence, on the other end, for a few seconds. A deep inhale from her.

“If… hypothetically speakin’, since we can actually get this shit done now….” she begins. “If, hypothetically speakin’, I was gonna ask you to marry me, what would you say?”

You smile widely, and blush.

“Well, hypothetically speaking, I would accept this proposal.”

Next to you, Mituna mouths the phrase “get it in”, and makes vigorous pelvic thrusting motions. You kick hir.

“And if none a this shit was hypothetical?” Meenah asks.

“I’d still say yes.”

You can practically hear the relief on the other end.

You look at the three rings on your hands. Meenah bought you the most recent one when you passed the NCLEX-RN with an almost perfect score. You contemplate the addition of a fourth, and then a fifth.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

You two talk about being college graduates, your plans for the weekend, and the future, until you start to fall asleep holding the phone. Meenah can tell that you’re on your way to passing out, because then she tenderly tells you to “go the fuck to sleep.”

“Oh yeah, and tell Tuna-fish I said happy birthday, if that asshole’s even awake.”

You don't tell her that Mituna's birthday was about a month ago. All she'll do is get mad that she wasn't invited, since she was in rehearsals.

“Will do.”

“Cool,” she says, laughing. “I love you, Porrim.”

“Love you, too.”

She hangs up.

Mituna gives you this stupid grin, probably doing the eyebrow wiggle too, although you can’t see hir eyes underneath hir bangs.

“She finally popped the quethtion, didn’t she?”

You nod, continuing to blush the color of the seventh avenue line.

“You already know the answer to that, don’t you?”

Ze starts playing hir video game again and doesn’t respond. You twist the ring on your right index finger, the one she gave you the day you started dating, way back in your junior year of high school, around, and around, and around.

“Tho,” Mituna says, not taking hir eyes off the television. “Do I get to be a bridethmaid and wear a pretty drethth?”

You roll your eyes at hir for the second time tonight.

"Mituna, you already know that you're going to be my maid of honor. You and Latula can fight over it, or something."


End file.
